What many don't realize is that large news organizations often provide two views of the news. One is a view aimed toward the local audience, and focuses on in-country events, and includes a lot of sports and entertainment.
The other view is aimed toward the international audience and focuses on events of world wide importance or interest.
A typical US visitor to a news site will get the local view at US sites, and the international view at non-US sites. Al Jazeera doesn't cover "Arab Idol" the way CNN covers "American Idol", for instance, not because Al Jazeera is serious and CNN is fluff, but rather because Al Jazeera's "Arab Idol" coverage will be in its edition aimed at Arab countries, which US viewers won't see. (Yes, there is an "Arab Idol", and it is as big in Arab countries as "American Idol" is in the US).
American news have been covering it as well. I don't watch TV news so I can't comment there, but at least NPR has had lots of coverage (albeit lots of it comes through their broadcasts of the BBC) and it shows up in Google News as well.
